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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053704">Born in Blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena'>steelneena</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [30]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, angst but then a little fluff, babys first words lol, molly discovers his powers, new molly, pre campaign</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:08:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gustav's taken in strays before. A dead man though - and not just the kind who is pretending - well, that's a new one.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gustav Fletching &amp; Mollymauk Tealeaf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [30]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Born in Blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridas/gifts">Meridas</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s rarely a day that goes by at the carnival where something doesn’t go at least moderately wrong. It’s not always a disaster – sometimes, someone is just pissed off at someone else, sometimes they get run out of town because the villagers are suspicious, sometimes the local authorities catch onto the subtle scams that a few of their members have been known to pull from…time to time. Regardless, it’s hardly uncommon for Gustav to have to deal with a crisis of some sort before the midday bells toll, that is…if they’re in a town big enough for having midday bells.</p><p>It’s for these reasons – and the fact that his carnies can be just as superstitious as the glaring townsfolk – that he hasn’t yet advertised exactly how he came to…discover MT. Being dragged naked into their camp, dirty and only shakily repeating <em>empty</em>, over and over again certainly hasn’t made the tiefling popular with everyone, at least, not at first. It’s polarizing enough as it is. But to tell them exactly how he came to be discovered…</p><p>So Gustav’s kept a fairly close eye on the pitiful creature. His hair is shorn close to the scalp, his body scarred in thin silver lines… a map to some mysterious past no doubt, though whether or not MT will ever share his story is another thing altogether.</p><p>Nine days in, he stopped repeating the word, and has hardly made a sound since. Not necessarily concerning, considering the way he’s managed to adapt. Picking clothes for himself with vivacious gusto in his features, eyes widening at Orna’s magnificent collection of amber bedecked jewelry, tail flailing wildly whenever music starts playing.</p><p>It’s clear, whatever happened to him, he was <em>someone</em> and part of that remains. Buried deep, perhaps. Beneath trauma? Or scarred over memory? It matters very little. Gustav knows a thing or two about taking in dangerous folk and well, the way he was found doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dangerous, and at first glance, neither might the nine red eye tattoos, or the scars, save that they’re rather thin and precise…and deliberate.</p><p>So there’s something <em>something </em>about MT that sticks with Gustav.</p><p>They’ve been together just three weeks, and most folk have taken a amusing shine to MT, or at the very least, tolerant. At first, he was clingy. Now, he’s rather independent if he needs to be, though never precisely by choice. So much is apparent. He adores sound of all types – even the most atrocious – and everything beautifully garish to boot. He’s as fascinated with the carnival as its denizens have grown with him.</p><p>So Gustav spends a little less time worried and a little more time wondering.</p><p>Most days.</p><p>Today is not one of those days.</p><p>It’s not a shriek. Not shrill, nor soft. It’s <em>terror</em>, a trembling tenor that tears through the air. A shout. Surprise. Fear. Pain.</p><p>Gustav <em>knows</em> his people. It’s not a voice he recognizes.</p><p>All heads turn, but Gustav is the one who makes a beeline for the storage tent. It’s his job, afterall, to oversee the miserable waif he’d brought into their establishment, if indeed it could ever be called such. Pushing aside the flap on the tent, he doesn’t have to squint much in the wavering twilight to see just exactly what cause the wrenching sound that had rent the air.</p><p>MT.</p><p>He’s on the ground, splay back as if he’d been tipped backwards, a pot fallen and shattered on the floor from its prize position on a pedestal. Chest heaving erratically, MT’s eyes are wide with not amazement, but pure adrenaline fueled fear. In the barrels before him, the routine swords. His stare is unwavering, and he doesn’t react to the sound of Gustav gently calling him, riveted as he is. Stricken, utterly paralyzed with fear.</p><p>Gustav takes a step forward.</p><p>There’s nothing of any particular merit about the barrel at first, until he sees the rusted rapier laid atop it. It’s not meant to be there, of course, and Gustav smiles chidingly. Perhaps, a lesson in sharp objects is merited afterall. He’d thought that perhaps some inherent memory about the danger of blades might have permeated the blank slate that is MT, but then, lingering along the pockmarked wooden edge of the barrel, he notices the strange filigree of frost.</p><p>In the middle of summer.</p><p>Tentatively, Gustav lays a hand on the blade, and a small little sound, pained, reaches his ears.</p><p>One glance back down at MT confirms it.</p><p>Where before he had been still, now he tremours, shaking like a leaf. Shakily, he raises a hand. Red runs bloody over his palm, trailing from the thin slice.</p><p>“You hurt yourself?” Gustav asks, less for his own benefit and more for MT’s. The more they talk around him, the surer he is to pick up some words himself. “But that’s not what scared you, is it?”</p><p>He can remember the first time he got a cut as a child, the first time blood streamed. The shock usually muffles the sound at first, and then it comes as a wail, protracted and terrible. This…this is something else.</p><p>“You make the frost? That what’s got you riled?”</p><p>If MT understands what he’s saying, it’s unclear. Usually, he’s very animated when trying to convey his thoughts physically, but this stillness is new. Concerning.</p><p>“Some people got magic, friend. Maybe you’re one of them. Nothing to be afraid of.”</p><p>Still, MT looks wary. Thin, like water, the blood drips down his upheld wrist. Gustav kneels, slowly – one never knows how a startled creature might react, and MT is a little more on the wild end of personhood still, and with good reason, Gustav expects.</p><p>“Hey there. We’ll take care of it, alright? Get you all patched up right as rain. How about it?” Tentatively, he reaches out a hand and lays it on MT’s shoulder. Long, dark lashes flutter, and the impossible stillness slowly fades into a terrible shaking and the heaving of breaths that cue the onset of harsh tears. Gustav doesn’t mind – not really. They each have their damage, each have the remnants of terror threaded in their veins. He just prefers not to think about his, and well, MT seems to be much the same.</p><p>“I’ll tell you what,” Gustav says and he helps MT to his feet. “That was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard out of you. Brutal terrible sounds you can make, did you know? Could make a living scaring the living daylights out of folks. Maybe I’ll have to work you into the show.”</p><p>There’s a spark of something at that. A twitch at most, maybe, and the tears – large and silent, with a silvery sheen – slow.</p><p>“You like that idea?”</p><p>The slow nod of a head is his response. Whether or not it actually means what he’s indicated is another question altogether, but Gustav has spent the entire time speaking to MT as though he can understand every word and he’s not about to stop now. It’s the surest way, he knows, of teaching someone to talk, if indeed MT doesn’t know how.</p><p>“Hmmm.” Gustav watched MT’s micro expressions from the corner of his eye. The thought crosses his mind that an ice sword show could be pretty fantastic, but it’s unfortunately impossible, at least at this juncture. “Maybe something flashy? Something with dancing? You’ve got the long legs and big personality to do it. We’ll have to talk to Orna. Find something for you, if that’s what you want.”</p><p>For a long time, there’s silence. They walk together towards Gustav’s tent, where he keeps the medical supplies. Gustav, for his part, is deep in thought, mostly wondering just what it is that runs through the mysterious tiefling’s head. What dark memories haunt him with waking nightmares? What circumstances drew him to an early grave?</p><p>He might never know, of course, but the speculation? Well it never gets old.</p><p>Gustav pulls aside the corner of the tent. “In you go.”</p><p>Without needing to be guided, MT sits himself down in the center of the tent, cradling his wounded hand gently, but also very purposefully far away from his clothes. Gustav raises a brow at the sight, but pays it no more attention, settling instead before his trunk to rummage for a salve, a needle and thread, and clean linen for strips.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>The word is <em>so</em> sudden, so utterly unexpected, that Gustav falls back from his crouch onto his ass, splayed in ridiculous stupor.</p><p>“Did you…talk?”</p><p>“Yes.” MT parrots again, and once more, Gustav doubts exactly what is going on behind those unreadable red eyes.</p><p>“Can you say anything other than yes?”</p><p>“Empty.”</p><p>A beat, strangely tense, gazes locked. (Gustav is sure of it, somehow, despite the fact that he can never be certain if MT is looking precisely at him or not).</p><p>Then, the corner of MT’s lips twitch up.</p><p>“Oh, so you have a sense of humour now?” Gustav asks. “Cheeky bastard.”</p><p>MT smiles. It’s small, fledgling, and his hand is still shaking, but the smile is real. “Yes.”</p><p>Gustav only shakes his head and contemplates, for the nth time, just exactly what he’s gotten himself into.</p><p> </p>
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